Boone County Fiscal Court discussed the purchase of Rivershore Sports Complex, Hebron, at a strategic planning session in November. / The Enquirer/Patrick Reddy

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In an election year, you never know what seemingly innocent issue will trigger a political meltdown.

In Boone County, where Republicans are locked in a fierce intraparty battle for control of county government, that issue is youth baseball.

Twice this year, the four-person Fiscal Court has deadlocked over whether to spend $250,000 to buy the Rivershore Sports Complex in Heb­ron in a public-private partnership with the nonprofit Boone County Knothole Association and an unnamed private foundation. The deal would be valued at $850,000.

Tensions are so high that two county commissioners on opposite sides of the issue got into an argument following a meeting on the issue in late January. The proposal was shot down a second time in late February.

One side says it’s a smart deal to gain control of six baseball fields for far less than the cost of building them. But the other side calls it a taxpayer-funded “bailout” for the privately owned sports complex.

Which side is right?

That’s probably for Republican voters to decide in the May 20 primary, where there are contested races for all four Fiscal Court seats.

Both sides deny that election-year politics are at play, of course, but it’s hard to imagine this being such a contentious issue if there weren’t an election in less than three months.

“It’s not about me, and it’s not about a campaign,” said Commissioner Matt Dedden, who twice voted against the deal. “I’m all on board with whatever we need to do (for Knothole), but we’ve got to stay out of the taxpayers’ pockets on these kinds of things.”

Dedden and Commissioner Charlie Walton, who also voted against the deal twice, have concerns about the long-term cost of maintaining the sports complex.

“I was elected to represent the taxpayers of Boone County, and, to a person, the taxpayers said they did not want to get into that,” Walton said.

Dedden, a first-term county commissioner elected in the tea party wave of 2010, is challenging longtime Judge-executive Gary Moore in the May 20 primary. Walton, who frequently votes with Dedden, faces a challenge from former Florence police chief Tom Szurlinski.

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“It’s the silly season of politics, I guess,” said Commissioner Charlie Kenner, who voted for the deal twice. “I don’t think I’ve been confounded so much on anything in my life.”

For Kenner and Moore, it’s a no-brainer: spend $250,000 to acquire six baseball fields and recoup it through concession, league and field fees. The remainder of the money would come from Knothole ($450,000) and from a private foundation ($150,000).

Moore, whose administration put the deal together, said the county needs new ballfields and this is the cheapest route available to taxpayers.

Since 2005, the number of children playing Knothole in Boone County has grown from just over 3,000 to nearly 4,000, and the county’s population is projected only to rise. But due to school and airport growth, there are three fewer ballfields in the county today than in 2005.

“I think it’s a very simple issue that should have been a unanimous decision,” Moore said. “There’s no challenging the fact that there are more children playing youth sports in Boone County and there are less fields than there were 20 years ago. The need for more fields exists today, and it’s going to increase as we move forward.

“It’s an opportunity that I think we should not let slip by.”

Slip by it did, though: after two 2-2 votes, the deal is unlikely to be brought before Fiscal Court a third time.

It is extremely rare for such a proposal to come to a vote once, much less twice, unless supporters have the votes to pass it. Kenner and Moore both said they thought they did.

“Discussions with the court leading up to the first vote led us to believe we had three votes, maybe four. But that did not transpire,” Moore said.

The issue isn’t really about youth baseball at all, though.

It’s about deep, philosophical divides among Boone County Republicans when it comes to the role of government.

There has always been a small, but vocal, bloc of anti-government conservatives in the county. In November 2008, they helped send a proposed parks tax to defeat.

And then a few months later, they gathered in Burlington for an outdoor rally that was one of more than 500 “tea party” rallies organized across the nation that day.

The tea party movement gained steam and gave those conservatives a voice, validation, and the mechanism to effect political change.

Buoyed by the candidacy of Rand Paul, they took several countywide offices in 2010 elections, putting them in a position to block legislation such as the ballfield proposal.

In March 2012, they also took control of the Boone County Republican Party, sweeping all five offices in the party elections. Vice chairwoman Phyllis Sparks is challenging Kenner in the May 20 primary.

Now they’ve fielded candidates for virtually every countywide office. And in a little over three months, the question will be put to voters: what, exactly, is the role of local government in people’s lives?